CIII-TV is a television station owned by Canwest that serves much of the population of the Canadian province of Ontario. From its launch in 1974 until 2009, the station's main transmitter was licensed to Paris, a small town near Brantford, but following a license amendment in 2009, Toronto is now the station's primary city of license.[1] Through its entire history, however, the station's main studio has always been in Toronto.

Most cable television systems in Ontario carry the station, normally on channel 3.

Upon launching in 1974, the station was known as the "Global Television Network", a name which reflected its then-unprecedented coverage of several Ontario markets through a network of satellite-fed transmitters. The name would be adopted nationally by Canwest's primary group of TV stations in 1997, at which point CIII became known internally as "Global Ontario", but generally avoided the name on-air, even after most other Global stations began using regional branding in 2006. The Ontario station began to identify as "Global Toronto" in 2009 following the aforementioned licence amendment, but continues to use only the main Global logo in its bug, unlike other Global stations.

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History

The original stylized "G" Global logo was used for more than 20 years from 1974-1997. The logo was rarely seen outside of Ontario.

The station was launched on January 6, 1974 under the CKGN-TV call letters, but has always been known on-air as Global. It had been hoped to be distinct from CBC and CTV by airing a number of its own Canadian-made programs. Three months later, the station was in deep financial trouble, and had canceled many of its own programs. To survive, the network essentially became a clone of CTV, airing as much non-Canadian content as allowed (at the time, Canadian content regulations required 50 percent overall, with 60 percent in prime time). The station's financial difficulties continued until it was bailed out by two conglomerates in 1977, one based in Ontario, the other in western Canada. Several years later, both tried to buy out the other's interests, and the CRTC ended the contest by allowing the western group to take full ownership, a landmark change in Canadian broadcasting that ended the dominance of central Canada.

The callsign CKGN-TV was changed to CIII-TV in January 1984, to mark the 10th anniversary of the station. The Windsor/Cottam transmitter would be an exception for a few years as it continued to be identified in CRTC documents as CKGN-TV-1, perhaps due to licencing issues with nearby Detroit broadcasters (see "Transmitters and Facilities" below). ("CKGN" was a former callsign for a television station in North Bay, Ontario from 1955 to 1962, known today as CKNY-TV. The "CKGN" calls are now used by a Kapuskasing, Ontario radio station, CKGN-FM.)

CIII has evolved into a much more Toronto-centric station in recent years. Previously, it employed a number of freelance journalists from across the province who filed reports for Global News. This, along with extensive provincewide weather coverage, gave the station a distinctive Ontario feel for many years. In the late 1990s, its focus turned almost exclusively toward Toronto.

Global Ontario logo, 1997-2006

CIII was originally owned by Global Communications, which was fully acquired by Izzy Asper in 1989. Asper's stations, including UTV in Vancouver, STV (CFRE-TV/CFSK-TV) in Saskatchewan, CKND-TV in Winnipeg, and MITV in the Maritimes, formed a mini-network for a number of years, which evolved into the Global that Canadians know today. All of these stations began using the "Global" brand, in addition to CIII, in 1997.

News

In keeping with the non-use of regional branding noted above, CIII, up until recently used "Global News", as opposed to a regional name such as "Global Ontario", as its main news brand. In the fall of 2009, however, for news programming, it began using "Global Toronto", since its newscasts focus primarily on that city. Individual newscasts are titled News Hour, News Final, et cetera.

Early on, its flagship news program Global News developed, and in the beginning it was anchored by Peter Trueman in Toronto and Peter Desbarats in Ottawa. During the 1980s, Global greatly expanded its news operation, with an hour-and-a-half of news starting at 5:30 PM, plus news at noon and at 11 PM. By the end of the 1980s, the noon news was simply called News at Noon, the 5:30 news was called First News, the 6:00 news was called The Six O'Clock Report, and the 11:00 news was called The World Tonight. Anchors over the years have included Mike Anscombe, Beverly Thomson, John Dawe, Jane Gilbert, Peter Kent, Loretta Sullivan, Bob McAdorey, Thalia Assuras, Anne-Marie Mediwake, and others.

From February 2009 to August, CIII simulcast CHCH-TV's Morning Live, originating in Hamilton, from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. CIII previously produced its own morning show called Global News Morning, but dropped it due to low ratings and as a cost cutting measure. The Noon News Hour was cancelled as well. The CHCH simulcast was later dropped after Canwest sold the Hamilton station to Channel Zero, with CIII now airing second-run lifestyle programming in the morning timeslot. CIII currently reruns the previous night's News Hour Final.

CIII's main and original transmitter broadcasts on channel 6, from a tower near Paris, which is located between London and Hamilton, at 475 Ayr Road.

Studios and offices are located in Toronto at 81 Barber Greene Road, the same address from which broadcasts began in 1974. Secondary studio and news bureau facilities are located at the National Press Centre in Ottawa.

A series of rebroadcast transmitters relay the Paris signal to much of Ontario. Most of these use the call sign CIII followed by a number to denote their status as rebroadcasters, except in Sudbury and North Bay where the CFGC call sign is assigned. The most likely explanation for using CFGC is that the close resemblance between the number 1 and the letter I would make CIII-TV-11 an undesirable call sign for Sudbury, while North Bay couldn't use CIII-TV-2 as that call sign is already in use in Bancroft.

The Cottam transmitter was frequently blank during the airing of prime-time American imports as the signal reached into Detroit. The Detroit "Big Three" affiliates insisted that the networks not allow a Canadian broadcaster to air network programming in the Detroit area. This also affected CBC's station in Windsor, CBET, which frequently had to air alternative programs. For more information on this, see Media in Windsor, Ontario and Media in Detroit, Michigan.

Global Ontario logo, 2006-2009

In 1986, the CRTC approved the relocation of the Windsor-area transmitter from Cottam to Stevenson.[2] This transmitter (then CIII-TV-1) was silent for several years following a transmitter fire in the late 1970s. Some time after this, the CIII-TV-22 call letters from the now-defunct Uxbridge transmitter were re-assigned to the Stevenson transmitter. The transmitter is located northeast of Wheatley, but its signal is aimed northeast (towards Chatham-Kent), and barely reaches Windsor and Detroit—presumably to protect the Detroit stations.

The Uxbridge transmitter was deleted in 1988, replaced by CIII-TV-41, broadcasting from the CN Tower in Toronto.[3] For all intents and purposes, given that the station is based in Toronto, this was CIII's main transmitter and Global's flagship even before the station officially moved its licence to Toronto in 2009. This was the case with the Uxbridge transmitter as well. Starting in 2008, CIII began sending its signal to the Toronto transmitter first, since the Paris transmitter does not yet have digital capability.

Other transmitters were gradually introduced, including (launch dates in parenthesis):

CIII is not available in Thunder Bay, but Thunder Bay Television station CHFD broadcast a large amount of Global programming. TBTV's owners, the Dougall family, were concerned about Global cutting into its ratings and pressured the CRTC to deny Global's application to build a transmitter there. However, in 2009, Thunder Bay Television had proposed to switch the affiliation of CHFD from CTV to Global. The Global Television Network is also not available in Kenora; the local CTV affiliate, CJBN-TV, airs some Global programming.

Initial attempts to cover Peterborough and Kingston from CIII-TV-2 Bancroft had yielded poor to marginal results; this signal has since been largely supplanted (for Peterborough only) by the more-powerful CIII-TV-27.

Global's CIII-TV-41 Toronto, along with CHCH Hamilton and Global BC began over-the-air high-definition broadcasts in 2008.[4]

In the early 1990s, additional transmitters were added to rebroadcast Global's signal other cities in Ontario.[5]

Digital television and high definition

As of July 2009, CIII-DT-41 in Toronto has begun broadcasting.

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on August 31, 2011 [6], CIII-DT-41 will move from channel 65 to its current analog channel number, 41, following transition, because of the phaseout of channels 52-69.

Transition standards and procedures will vary for Global's other repeaters, though their full-powered repeaters are expected to convert to digital-only broadcast.